Monday, February 27, 2012

Is This, At Last, The Bottom?

If I was asked to sum-up the thing MOST wrong with "geek culture" in general and gamer culture specifically, it would be three simple words: BETA-MALE MISOGYNY - the general sense of angst-driven entitlement among a sizable chunk of geekdom's dominant white/hetero/male demographic that it's somehow "justified" for them to engage in the casual hatred/debasement of women (and minorities and gays while we're at it) because they were (or at least percieve themselves to have been) slighted by women in the past/present.

You see this manifest everywhere, from the absolutely brutal woman-hatred that afflicts shut-in havens like Reddit or Tumblr, to say nothing of the toxic environment fostered in online gaming communities... and, of course, the wailing about criticism of such spaces in the form of "Aw, c'mon! This is the ONLY place left where it's okay for guys to talk like that!" - as though the fact that there shouldn't be a place where that's "okay" has NEVER occured to them - and now you can see it in Kotaku's most-recent brain fart: Giving over article space to a "comedic" memoir by a self-professed "ladies' man" detailing his Tucker Max-esque 'challenge' of getting women to have sex in his Sonic The Hedgehog themed bed.

Okay, so... pretty vile. Congratulations on the traffic Kotaku, you've more than earned it - but can I ask if this can please be the BOTTOM now? Seriously - Gamer Culture? Can we let this be "it," the last worst thing "we" do to make ourselves look like the degenerate lumps everyone assumes we are to begin with? Or do we have further yet left to sink...

I have many problems with how gamers treat women, but I'm not getting what the big deal is with the Kotaku article. A woman choosing to have sex with a man on a Sonic bed is far from interesting or worth being on Kotaku, (a site I've never been to before now, btw) but I don't view it as belittling my gender. She chose to sleep with him, and that's her right to do so. In no way, shape or form, do I feel this reflects on women as a whole.

Women are not going to sleep with you because you call yourself a feminist. They aren't going to think more highly of you. No matter how much or how little you speak of feminist teachings, they will always think you have an angle. The best you can be is merely adequate in their eyes.

So tut-tutting Kotaku for being lame and calling a bunch of other gamers "Beta-males" and showing an isolated story is basically pointless and a bit wrong-headed.

I think you're putting too much hate on the men that feel that way. The thing is, this sort of beta-male grudge against women is too big a phenomenon to blame solely on the men that think that way. There are clearly societal reasons as to why so many men feel disenfranchised with women and relationships. Men of the younger generation have been told to be continually nice and everything will work out all right. As men grow up, they realize that this outlook is a lie and blame the society that made them think that way in the first place. Since women had such an influence in those ideals that were taught to them as children, it's not much of a wonder as to where the misogyny comes from. To be honest, I feel that you're part of the reason this phenomenon perpetuates. Saying that men shouldn't vent their frustrations isn't helping the situation.

@ Anonymous: Because clearly, the only reason guys would stand up for feminist values is to "trick" them into sleeping with them, right?

Fuck you.

I disagree with Bob. A lot. On a lot of things. But one area we persistently agree on is that Gamer/"Geek" culture needs to shape up, big time, in the way it views and treats women (and race and sexuality, for that matter, though those come up less often on Bob's blogs). As a man, as a Sonic fan, and as a Gamer, I find the attitude embedded into the Kotaku article to be insulting and demeaning, to say nothing of the dubious taste of choosing to share his sex-life in such a public forum (without, most likely, the consent of the women involved; he doesn't name-drop any of them, sure, but they know who they are, and I can't imagine reading the article is thus not just a little embarrassing even so).

So don't assume that Bob, or me, or people like us who have this radical notion that women deserve to be treated like human beings instead of "conquests" for you to crow about online are, in fact, like the guy from the Kotaku article and only ever view the needs and feelings of women as important only as far as it relates to our own ability to "get laid".

As a person who regularly visits hives of beta misogyny far worse than reddit, I agree 100% with your sentiment, Bob.

But, I don't see it in this article. I just see a guy who wanted to see if it was possible to get laid on sonic-themed bedware. As much as this article comes off as a sonic fan bragging about how much strange he's gotten, it seems to have the opposite thesis to all the "why aren't I getting laid" rhetoric.

"Women are not going to sleep with you because you call yourself a feminist."

I know it's already been responded to, but I see this response SO often and it's just utterly missing the point. This isn't a matter of getting laid, this is a matter of having some empathy and treating other humans like, you know, humans.

And before you pull some Freudian "it's all about sex" bullshit, let me outline some alternate reasons for why someone might give a damn about another person's feelings. 1) We want the world to be a better place. 2) We've had important women in our lives and want to see them receive the respect and love they deserve. 3) We've been the target of enough degenerate hate ourselves that we don't want anyone else to go through the same thing.

I know white knights. White knights don't stand up for morals. White knights appear to, but don't give a damn. You know what, if we didn't care about the issue, we wouldn't be saying anything.

The whole thing smells of epic levels of douche-baggery. Honestly, basically he talks about a one night stand and then later on, BAM, girlfriend. This guy has zero understanding on how relationships work, even if all this is supposed to be a joke.An unecessary jab at FiM is just icing on the turd.

The sexism in the article is implicit, really. He doesn't come out and state that women are conquests, but the sentiment is certainly there. Different people will likely take different amounts of offense since it's obscured a bit.

The bigger problem is the immaturity of the article. I think most of us can agree that this is the kind of thing a person might brag about in high school. As a result, the image of the gamer community as childish is furthered. Also, this article was prominently featured on a well known gaming site which added to the stigma. I strongly agree with Bob on that point.

The article is ultimately insignificant. To say that it is completely harmless, though, is definitely a superficial interpretation.

Bob, I generally agree with your opinions on gamer culture and how shitty it is, but not only is this not "the bottom" (not even close, really), I don't even see how this is misogynist. It's not like I'd be offended if there was a gender swapped article and it involved, say, Twilight bed sheets, or I guess even Sonic bed sheets.

Would you mind explaining how it's misogynist beyond making a blog post complaining about it and beyond making the inevitable Game Overthinker episode where you condescendingly react to comments like this one with "OMG PEPULL R ACSHULY DEFENDING DIS RTICKLE OMGOMG U GAIZ R SO HORIBL STOP SUCKING SO BAD".

Bob, if you've learned anything from politics or entertainment, you would know that it can always get stupider. There is no such thing as rock bottom. There used to be, but then we invented super drills to drill right through the bottom to go endlessly down. At least I have the batman arcade game and some roller coaster footage. I'm good.

I'm confused. Every other episode you claim any non-retro gamer is an 'Alpha male douchebag' despite that not being the case, and when a website writes a 'humour' article designed specifically to appeal to those people, you say it's gamer culture as a whole that's the problem?

My opinion on feminists, women, geeks and gamers doesn't really matter as no one cares about my opinions. But painting all gamers as sexist despite a large portion, yourself included, are angry about this situation shows that, even the geeks who do hold grudges, at least have more respect for women then whatever demographic the article was written to appeal to.

I like the fact that not 2 weeks ago, Kotaku BLASTS David Jaffe for 'misogyny' when he says 'let the girl win and she'll be more likely to suck your d*ck,' advice akin to 'let the girl win at bowling, she'll have more fun and want to go out again.Today they release this schlock.They refused to take down what their editor took out of context by Jaffe, claiming he was a misogynist (which means someone who hates or mistrusts women) which his comment doesn't imply at all.I stopped reading Kotaku ~4 years ago and I haven't looked back.

I think what's sexist here isn't the act of sleeping with women on his Sonic-themed bed. It does not appear he tried to trick them, or used coercion or liquor or force (and PLEASE tell me you'd all agree with me that that would all cross the line). He represented himself as a nerdy dude interested in short-term sex, and was nothing more or less than that. And that's fine. I'll even go so far as to say that his using the women for sex is fine; it appears that the women were doing the same thing, and, again, two consenting adults, what's wrong with that?

What is wrong, what is very wrong, is the mentality he goes into sex with, and the mentality he is imparting upon his audience. That is, a mentality that sex is a competition, a business transaction, that one "wins" or "loses," that women are prizes to be won or claimed rather than people, and that getting a woman to sleep with him despite his bed is somehow a victory over the woman in question. (Which, in turn, assumes again that one wishes to conquer women, to defeat them, rather than to cooperate with them.) It marks women off as separate, strangers, others (which is also bad for the gaming/geek community); and it is a mentality that is inherently violent. I mean, yeah, I'll grant you, absolutely, totally, that nothing he did was violent, or particularly wrong. But it's the presentation, the delivery. After all, I'm sure that if you sit and think about it, you'll see quickly that thinking that sex is a competition and that women ought to be conquered is, if not itself violent, not far removed from thinking that, for instance, it's fine to "even the competition" by getting the woman drunk first, or by putting her in a compromising situation, or even by just plain raping her if she won't say yes. And I'm sure you'll agree that that's violent as hell.

So, yeah, that's what I think is sexist here. I'll bet MovieBob sees that too. The fact that not all of us see that violence and sexism for what it is is a sign of how much we've been trained to dismiss it as "normal." But I hope you'll agree with me that it shouldn't be.

I think what's sexist here isn't the act of sleeping with women on his Sonic-themed bed. It does not appear he tried to trick them, or used coercion or liquor or force (and PLEASE tell me you'd all agree with me that that would all cross the line). He represented himself as a nerdy dude interested in short-term sex, and was nothing more or less than that. And that's fine. I'll even go so far as to say that his using the women for sex is fine; it appears that the women were doing the same thing, and, again, two consenting adults, what's wrong with that?

What is wrong, what is very wrong, is the mentality he goes into sex with, and the mentality he is imparting upon his audience. That is, a mentality that sex is a competition, a business transaction, that one "wins" or "loses," that women are prizes to be won or claimed rather than people, and that getting a woman to sleep with him despite his bed is somehow a victory over the woman in question. (Which, in turn, assumes again that one wishes to conquer women, to defeat them, rather than to cooperate with them.) It marks women off as separate, strangers, others (which is also bad for the gaming/geek community); and it is a mentality that is inherently violent. I mean, yeah, I'll grant you, absolutely, totally, that nothing he did was violent, or particularly wrong. But it's the presentation, the delivery. After all, I'm sure that if you sit and think about it, you'll see quickly that thinking that sex is a competition and that women ought to be conquered is, if not itself violent, not far removed from thinking that, for instance, it's fine to "even the competition" by getting the woman drunk first, or by putting her in a compromising situation, or even by just plain raping her if she won't say yes. And I'm sure you'll agree that that's violent as hell.

So, yeah, that's what I think is sexist here. I'll bet MovieBob sees that too. The fact that not all of us see that violence and sexism for what it is is a sign of how much we've been trained to dismiss it as "normal." But I hope you'll agree with me that it shouldn't be.

"BETA-MALE MISOGYNY - the general sense of angst-driven entitlement among a sizable chunk of geekdom's dominant white/hetero/male demographic that it's somehow "justified" for them to engage in the casual hatred/debasement of women (and minorities and gays while we're at it) because they were (or at least percieve themselves to have been) slighted by women in the past/present."

I like to call this the "Bill Maher Effect." I haven't read Kotaku for awhile and the fact that they let schlock like this on the site is the last straw. This article just stinks of pathetic, archaic misogyny that moronic "men's rights" shitheads try to excuse because that would mean they have to stop being douchebags.

There is absolutely none of that in the article. It's not mature (but it's a comedy piece so adjust expectations) but nowhere does he show a dislike towards women. This kind of use of the word only degrades it.

This is a stretch, all he did was talk about getting laid in a Sonic bed as a challenge, not getting a girl period.

"After all, I'm sure that if you sit and think about it, you'll see quickly that thinking that sex is a competition and that women ought to be conquered is, if not itself violent, not far removed from thinking that, for instance, it's fine to "even the competition" by getting the woman drunk first, or by putting her in a compromising situation, or even by just plain raping her if she won't say yes."

Spare us the slippery slope crap.

"The fact that not all of us see that violence and sexism for what it is"

Sigh... Bob, your pieces on gender issues have been pretty reasonable up until this point, so this batshit hardline feminist horseshit coming from you is way out of left field. It absolutely changes the context of all of your other pieces on gender issues, though.

as though the fact that there shouldn't be a place where that's "okay" has NEVER occured to them

So you're in favor of suspending these people's basic human rights to free speech, free thought, and free assembly simply because you don't agree with their opinions? Disgusting. You have gone full retard, Bob.

The worst thing is that I know this was an attempt to proselytize. Your sanctimonious drive to fix things you perceive to be wrong with "gamer culture" (ugh) has been your schtick for a long time. Your previous pieces on the issue were successful, because they sounded moderate and reasonable. You threw that all away with this article. I guarantee you that not one of the people you're trying to reach sees anything even remotely wrong with the article you've posted, and raging about it only drives them away further. So, good job on that one, Bob.

If a man has been constantly spurned by women, there's a pretty good chance he'll grow to hate them on some level. It may not be right, it may not be justified, but it's an unfortunate fact of life. Yelling at them on the internet isn't going to accomplish anything, especially when you're doing such a poor job of hiding your feminist power level.

I think the original Anonymous's comment is right on the money. In a previous episode Bob talks about how having access to books aimed at pre-teen girls helped him have increased sexual relations in high school.

If you think even a little bit of that isn't at least beneath the surface of Bob's feminist white-knighting, then you're kidding yourself.

I also know from experience that college feminists would rather date and try and convert a handsome, yet misogynist quarterback to their cause than even talk to anybody that comes pre-equipped with a feminist outlook.

In response to the above comment, if a man is constantly spurned, mistreated, or abused by women, that's a psychological problem that he must deal with and get over, because sour feelings against women is not acceptable. ...But if a woman is constantly mistreated by men, welcome to the feminist sisterhood, your worldview will be validated and re-validated for eternity!

Saying "you shouldn't do this" and you shouldn't have the right to do it, are different things. Nothing I've seen out of Bob indicates he's pro censorship

His exact words were "there shouldn't be a place where it is okay to do that", and he even called it a fact to boot.

This goes far beyond him saying "you're wrong." He is explicitly saying "You have no right to feel that way, express that opinion, or seek the company of others that feel that way."

He didn't bring government into it, nor did I. That's beside the point. He feels that communities of people who disagree with his hardline feminism should not exist on moral grounds. That makes him no better than a religious zealot.

"I also know from experience that college feminists would rather date and try and convert a handsome, yet misogynist quarterback to their cause than even talk to anybody that comes pre-equipped with a feminist outlook."

You're right on the money. And if they ever succeed in converting him, mind you, they'll immediately lose interest. College feminists are only happy if they're in a relationship with a misogynist, trying to convert him, and failing. That alone speaks volumes about them.

Kris Kail may be a total tool, but Bakhtanians...that guy REALLY is the worst of the worst. Hell, he even claims that sexual harassment is an integral part of the gaming community...WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!

-looks at Giant Bomb article- Urge to kill...SKYROCKETING. Wow, just, WOW. I can't believe that neanderthals like that still exist. And what's really sad is that incidents like it aren't exactly isolated

Out of one side of your mouth you're regurgitating feminist talking points. Out of the other side of your mouth, you're celebrating the things you love about video games by reciting a list of the female game characters who you think have nice "racks". Welcome to Cognitive Dissonance.

Having one post where you complain about misogyny (because a woman freely chose to have sex with somebody you consider "too beta"), followed immediately with a post about nice "racks" seems pretty stupid. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and just assume that you're trolling both sides simultaneously, because I don't want to believe you're actually that stupid.

I guess Bob will be kinda pissed off if he heads over to PA Report and reads about what happened on Cross Assault. Long story short, a female competitor deliberately threw a match because she was sick of all the sexual harassment she was being subjected to.

@Aiddon"The comments section makes my faith in the gaming community PLUMMET."Trash-talk is a part of many competitive gaming communities, not just video games. People who play sports, and even boardgames like chess enjoy the added psychological layer of "getting inside your opponent's head". Creating an arbitrary barrier against certain levels of trash-talk would render all forms of trash-talking ineffective.

oh, what a load of SHIT. That's the same stupid excuse bigots, homophobes, and racists use that makes me wonder why Freedom of Speech even exists. Yeah, trash-talk exists and comes with the territory...HOWEVER, it does not give you a free pass to sexually harass, demean, or use slurs against people. It's an ugly part of the gaming community that needs to be excised and destroyed. Being nice to people should not be fucking hard to do.

@AiddonYou think racists and homophobes are defending their right to use offensive slurs just as a tactic to win competitive video games? That's news to me... Trash-talk should be allowed because psychological warfare is a fun part competition. If you can get your opponent mad, they aren't thinking as clearly, and are more likely to make rookie mistakes. The social expectation of sportsmanship is like drawing a line in the sand. To have effective trash-talk, you cross the line far enough to get them mad. Trying to enforce some rules against trash-talk is like building a brick wall over that line in the sand. You render all trash-talk ineffective because it's impossible to cross the line. What you end up with is people standing at the border of the line just saying:"i fucked your mother""no, I fucked your mother"it gets boring if nobody's allowed to cross the line and mix it up a bit.

I think about it this way: professional athletes are reprimanded for doing crap like that. There's a difference between trash-talk and just being a mean-spirited, ham-fisted, juvenile neanderthal (which unfortunately too much of the goddamn community is comprised of). Most of the crap you're probably thinking of is people just doing variations of jokes said by hack comedians like Jeff Dunham or Carlos Mencia or just yelling "Yer gey" over and over again. The excuse you bring is, like I said, no better than one a lunkhead uses to try and get away with a slur that angers people for good reason. Fuck verbal dick-measuring. It's a pathetic, ignorant practice that is better off getting put down like the rabid dog that it is

I don't think Jeff Dunham or Carlos Mencia have ever used "you're gay" as an insult or a punch line. Now you're just taking things you personally dislike and lumping them all into one group that doesn't fit. This is a pretty sad attempt to use whatever justification you think is necessary to inhibit people's freedom of speech.

because he's bragging about how he had sex with a girl, which is a pretty pathetic, sexist thing to do. Really? Having sex is worth BRAGGING ABOUT???? Um....isn't that supposed to be, y'know, just a normal, everyday thing despite the fact that it's also considered very intimate? The only people who brag about boning are douchebag misogynists with poor self-esteem.

Your first sentence is a tautology. You answered the question of "How is it sexist?" with "It's a sexist thing to do.". So it's sexist because it's sexist? Gotcha... :P

Sex is a normal part of life, sure, but it's not like there's anything wrong about bragging about it. There's no reason for anyone to feel degraded by the fact that their partner is proud of their relatively normal act.

The text and context of the article reads more of a combination of casual misogyny and intentional taking the piss out of the stereotype gamer/geek than of just misogyny.

Talking about one's "conquests" in combination with the presentation of one's self as very sterotypical fanboy is a take that to the geek stereotype, but then the clincher comes from the line about changing the decor to MLP:FiM to see how his girlfriend reacts, breaking the, to that point, existing veneer of stereotypical geekdom.

As an aside as I was typing this I did a little digging from the linked article's links and found the author's blog. From reading some of his stuff there I feel confident he's just another douche trying to cash in on the heightened awareness of geek and gamer subcultures in the general populace and ultimately not worthy of the amount of commentary his "comedy" article has generated.

IMO this space and Bob's time would have been better spent on the content and context of the misogyny on Cross Assault which is what I expected when I saw the headline on the blog and, while unfortunately not in and of itself the bottom, is an incident showing something a hell of a lot lower in gaming than this BS.

However, Bob is still a fucking idiot for this article. The differences are subtle, but enough to completely change my opinion on the subject. Let me enumerate.

1. There should be places where misogynists can gather and freely share their opinions.

I don't like it, and I wouldn't ever go to any such place, but the fact remains that preventing them from doing so would infringe on their human rights, not first-amendment rights, to free speech, assembly, and thought.

Similarly, women should be free to go to such places, and misogynists should be free to verbally abuse them if they do. Going to a place where verbal abuse is allowed is implicitly agreeing to be verbally abused.

Bob disagrees with me on this point, and I'd say he's completely wrong. That said:

2. Reasonable people are within their rights to fight against misogyny in the fighting game community and other such communities.

The difference between StarCraft and the fighting game community is that they're different games. Aris is a fucking idiot for suggesting that misogyny is an integral part of the fighting game community.

There's a number of people like Aris who are willing to fight for misogyny in the fighting game community, and there's people like Bob who are willing to fight against it. My money's on Bob, but here's the point: They're both well within their rights to do so, and whatever the outcome is, it will be just. If there's more misogynists in the fighting game community than people like Bob, then the fighting game community can, should, and rightfully will remain a place where misogyny is okay.

I don't understand this kind of moralistic condemnation. People only have these kinds of prejudices because of a lack of control over their own feelings; when the choice is obvious, people don't choose to hate on another. However, criticism like this(saying it's "NOT OKAY") is just an attempt to manipulate the emotions of the target nto being more negative, which is exactly what won't change peoples' thinking.

About Me

Bob is a part-time independent filmmaker, part-time amateur film critic and full time Movie Geek. He is heterosexual, a pisces, and a severely lapsed Catholic. He is a tireless enemy of censorship, considers his personal politics "Libertine" and enjoys acting as a full time irritant to overly serious people of ALL political stripes.